


The Faithful Beauty of the Stars

by inexplicifics



Series: The Accidental Warlord and His Pack [27]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Sexually Transmitted Immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:29:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26964466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics
Summary: Witchers aren't great about time, but theydopay attention to their lovers...
Relationships: Egan | Auckes (The Witcher)/Original Female Character(s), Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Lambert (The Witcher)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Accidental Warlord and His Pack [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683661
Comments: 176
Kudos: 2577





	The Faithful Beauty of the Stars

Lambert snuggles closer to Milena, as close as he can get, tucking his head under her chin and just _clinging_. Milena strokes his back and makes low soothing noises until he stops shaking. “My love,” she murmurs, “what has happened?”

“Went through a town I visited, what, forty years ago,” Lambert mutters against her throat. “Girl I met back then - let me sleep in her barn and didn’t throw fucking rocks in me, which was _fucking rare_ back before -” he waves a hand vaguely at nothing before wrapping his arm around Milena again, even tighter. “Went to say hello, and she was fucking _old_. And I’m - not.” He makes a low, whining sort of sound in the back of his throat. “I can’t - _you’re_ human -”

“Oh, fuck,” Milena says, and shakes her head. Fuck the bet, if it’s making her Lambert hurt like _this_. “Oh, my love, my darling love, look at me.” She strokes a hand over his cheek, and he raises his head. “I won’t grow old.”

“ _What?_ ” Lambert blurts, and his eyes go huge. “You - you aren’t _sick_ , fuck, you can’t be sick, I’ll get Yennefer - Triss - _anyone_ -”

“Lambert!” Milena says, and he falls silent, staring at her in obvious panic. “I will live as long as you do. It’s - Zofia told me, a year and more ago. Something in Witchers’ seed keeps humans young and healthy, if it’s - ah - frequently applied.”

Lambert blinks at her for a long, long moment. “You’ll stay young,” he says at last, soft and incredulous. “You’ll stay young as long as you’re mine.”

“Yes,” Milena says, smiling up at him. “As long as I’m yours.”

“Oh,” Lambert says, and stares at her for a while longer. “But why didn’t you fucking _tell_ me?”

Milena can feel her cheeks heating. “Well, there’s a betting pool on how long it will take you all to figure it out,” she admits. “Witchers are very bad at time. Auckes _still_ hasn’t noticed Zofia isn’t aging, and they’ve been together almost twenty years by now.”

“Oh,” Lambert says, and after a moment begins to grin crookedly. “Actually that’s fucking hilarious, come to think of it. How long did you have, for the bet?”

“Another eight or nine years yet,” Milena admits ruefully. “But - well, I couldn’t let you keep hurting, my love.”

Lambert kisses her, gently and thoroughly. “Too sweet for me,” he murmurs. “So _fucking_ sweet, my Milena. Tell you what. I didn’t figure it out, so it doesn’t count; and I won’t tell anyone else. You could still win the bet.”

Milena giggles. “Alright then; I won’t tell if you won’t,” she says, and Lambert kisses her again, and that’s the end of talking for the evening.

*

“Catmint,” Eskel says, flopping down on his back and breathing like a bellows, “how the _fuck_ are you so randy? I _know_ most human men can’t go four times in a night.”

Jaskier, sprawled over Geralt’s chest and feeling _extremely_ well-fucked, grins. “Pure luck,” he says happily.

Geralt nuzzles his sweaty hair and takes a deep breath. “Don’t _smell_ anything but human,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe some elf blood, somewhere back in your line?”

“Incubus, maybe,” Eskel says, still panting. “You got a particularly scandalous grandparent, catmint?”

“As far as I know, I am absolutely one-hundred-percent human, no incubi or elves anywhere in my bloodline,” Jaskier says. “I _do_ have a scandalous grandmother, but that’s because she ran off with a tinker and told anyone who would listen that my grandfather was a nasty old man with horrid taste in furnishings, which was perfectly true.”

“Huh,” Eskel says. “Been sampling Yen’s potions, then?”

“I like all my limbs attached, thanks,” Jaskier says. “No, no potions, no spells, no nonhuman blood.”

“...You couldn’t go four times in a night when we first became lovers,” Geralt says slowly, stroking a hand down Jaskier’s back. Jaskier sighs and snuggles closer, groping across the bed with one hand until he finds Eskel’s arm and curling his fingers around it. “ _Something_ has changed.”

“Can I get you to put this line of questioning off for another...oh...eight years or so?” Jaskier asks, not really expecting they’ll agree.

“Why eight years?” Eskel asks.

“Because I really want Milena to win the betting pool,” Jaskier says, shrugging.

“Tell us, little lark,” Geralt rumbles. “It can stay our secret until Milena wins.”

Jaskier chuckles and rolls over, landing on his back between his wolves. “Alright, deal. It’s pretty simple, really. You two have fucked me immortal, or nearly so.”

“We _what_?” Eskel asks, propping himself up on one elbow and staring down at Jaskier in shock. Geralt does the same on his other side, and Jaskier is pinned by two pairs of slitted yellow eyes.

He grins up at them. “Fucked me immortal, or at least as long-lived as you are, best we can tell,” he says cheerfully. “Something in your seed, or maybe it’s in saliva, since we’re pretty sure Oliwia’s got it too, and Dragonfly’s not precisely got _seed_. We aren’t entirely sure, and we haven’t asked Yen or Triss yet. But anyone who takes a Witcher lover, after a while they start healing faster, and getting stronger, and they don’t age. Zofia says she thinks she’s even gotten a bit younger. And I can vouch for the fact that it makes refractory periods a _lot_ shorter.”

“What the fuck,” Eskel whispers. Geralt is just _staring_ , golden eyes wide with astonishment. “What the _actual fuck_.”

“Why the secrecy?” Geralt asks finally.

“Two reasons,” Jaskier shrugs. “First, we wanted to see how long it’d take you to figure it out. Auckes hasn’t, and he and Zofia have been together the longest. And second - well, honestly, I don’t know if anyone _else_ has thought of this, but I have. If word gets out that a Witcher lover is a ticket to quasi-immortality, people might start wondering if Witcher _blood_ could do the same - or just start trying to figure out how to take a Witcher and _force_ him to provide seed. I never want to risk any of you being taken captive by - well, anyone. You _know_ there are enough unscrupulous kings and sorcerers out there that it would be a danger.”

“Hm,” Geralt says, frowning. “It would, yes.”

“Huh,” Eskel agrees. “Good thinking, catmint.” He frowns. “Milena really thought it’d take us another eight years to catch on?”

“Witchers are bad at time,” Jaskier says. “Honestly I thought a decade was a bit short, but she’s an optimist.”

Eskel puts his head down on Jaskier’s shoulder and sighs. Geralt shakes his head, a wry smile teasing at the corners of his mouth. “Vicious little lark,” he says, and bends his head to kiss Jaskier thoroughly. “Well. Our secret, then. Let Milena have her win.”

“You are the sweetest man, really you are,” Jaskier says, wiggling happily. “On which note, I _did_ mention that my refractory period is now substantially shorter? And being sandwiched between two unfairly attractive Wolves is really not doing anything to _prevent_ that…”

“Catmint, you’ll be the death of us,” Eskel says, and slides down the bed to take Jaskier’s prick into his mouth. Jaskier yelps, and Geralt kisses the sound from his lips, and that’s the last coherency Jaskier has for the rest of the night.

*

“How were the trainees today?” Zofia asks, shucking out of her tunic and kicking out of her boots and trousers before sprawling onto the bed. Auckes gives her a cheerful leer before hauling his own tunic over his head and sitting down on the side of the bed to unlace his boots.

“Not bad,” he says, “except one of the lads fell out of a tree and broke his arm. Merigold said three months before it’s healed, so he’ll be well behind his cohort for a while; at least it wasn’t his sword arm.”

“Eh, poor lad,” Zofia says, wincing in sympathy. “That’s never pleasant.”

Auckes kicks his boots off and wriggles inelegantly out of his trousers before joining her on the bed, curling around her and nuzzling at her throat, nipping a little. Bitey as always. “He’ll heal, and next time he won’t be so damned foolish,” he grumbles, and then goes still. Zofia turns to look at him in slight worry.

“...Last time you broke _your_ arm,” Auckes says slowly, “it took less than a month to heal.”

Zofia nods. “So it did.”

“...Merigold give you something?” Auckes ventures.

“No,” Zofia says.

“Your leg took longer,” Auckes says, frowning in thought, his pupils thin slits of black against brilliant yellow. “But not _that_ long. And I’d swear blind you’re as human as I’m not.”

Zofia sighs. “You couldn’t have waited another few months to notice?” she asks. “I _did_ want to win the betting pool, just for bragging rights.”

Auckes frowns. “What betting pool?”

“The pool on when you’d all notice we aren’t aging,” Zofia says, shrugging. “Also healing faster, among other things.”

“...Who’s ‘we’?” Auckes asks, and then shakes his head. “No, wait - it’s all the Witchers’ lovers, isn’t it. You and the bard and Milena and all.”

Zofia nods.

Auckes thinks about that for a while, and then rubs a hand over his bald head and chuckles ruefully. “Almost twenty years it’s taken me. Fuck.”

“Would’ve been twenty in four months,” Zofia sighs. “So close, and yet so far.”

Auckes laughs harder, rolling onto his back and shaking with mirth. “Ah, fuck, you sneaky wench! Look at us, so proud of our damned eyes, and not seeing _this_!” He slaps his hand against the bed, chortling hard enough that it looks like he’s having trouble breathing. Zofia rolls her eyes and props herself up on an elbow, watching him and grinning.

“Fuck,” Auckes says at last, once he’s gotten his mirth under control. “I’m so glad.” He smiles up at her, too-sharp canines glinting in the faint light from the fire. “Wasn’t looking forward to losing you, lass.”

“Won’t lose me for a damn long time, unless someone gets a lucky hit in,” Zofia says softly. “You’re stuck with me, Viper.”

Auckes loops an arm around her waist and reels her in close. “Yeah,” he says, and kisses her, biting at her lips as he always does. “You want I should keep this quiet, see if we can win you that bet?”

“Sure,” Zofia says. “I mean, I _told_ you, so it doesn’t quite count as you figuring it out, right?”

“There’s my mercenary lass,” Auckes says approvingly. “Just so.”

Zofia sticks her tongue out at him, and the evening progresses quite pleasantly from there.

*

“Speak,” Geralt says softly, and the apparent leader of the little cluster of men and women puts her shoulders back and meets his eyes squarely.

“It’s like this,” she says. “We’re all of us from Madame Flora’s brothel, down in Wolvenburg. ‘S a fine place to work, and we’ve no complaints, specially as most of our clients’re Witchers and you lot are a lot politer than the average john.”

Geralt nods. Jaskier exchanges a glance of confusion with Jan, who had led the petitioners in; Jan shrugs eloquently. He has no idea what this is about either.

“Thing is,” the woman says, “every whore out there, pretty much, wants to earn enough to retire afore we’re old and grey and can’t do aught but sit in a corner with some gruel, y’know? An’ Madame Flora, she’s fair enough, we keep a goodly share of the coin we earn, we’ve no complaints. But y’see, milord Wolf, we’ve all of us earned ourselves enough to retire, and a gracious plenty more in some cases, but we’ve none of us got _old_.” She spreads her arms wide. “Look at me! I’ve forty winters, and I look a girl of twenty!”

There’s a sudden hush, the Witchers who had been having quiet conversations going still and turning to stare at the cluster of prostitutes. Jaskier glances at Zofia, who puts a hand over her face in amused dismay.

“We’re _all_ of us older’n we look, milord Wolf, and we’ve talked it over half a hundred times, and we can’t come up with _anything_ but that we’re the ones your Witchers prefer. So - so we’d like to know, is all. We don’t _mind_ bein’ young for ages, hells no, but we want to _know_.”

Geralt nods solemnly. “Then know you shall,” he says, and looks at Jaskier. “Lark?”

“Oh, you’re going to make _me_ say it,” Jaskier mutters, kissing Geralt’s cheek as he rises. He bows a little to the cluster of prostitutes, all of whom look quite taken aback at the gesture. “You are quite correct, my friends,” he tells them. “As far as we can tell, we who have taken Witchers as lovers, there is something about their seed which keeps their lovers young. We would prefer that this not be spread about, you understand, to keep the unscrupulous from attempting to take advantage of it.”

The leader of the petitioners nods. “We hear ye, milord,” she says, eyes very wide. “So - so while we’ve got Witchers in our beds, we won’t get old?”

“You won’t age, and you’ll heal fast, and you probably won’t fall ill,” Jaskier confirms. “There may be other benefits as well.”

“Coo,” one of the other prostitutes whispers. “That’s fair _marvelous_.”

“Wait, _what?_ ” Aiden blurts. “You mean our Kitten won’t _age_?”

Jaskier nods. Milena puts both hands over her face, ears bright pink. Over at the Viper table, Letho and Serrit are both staring at Zofia in shock. Auckes...doesn’t look surprised. Neither does Lambert, actually. Nor Dragonfly, nor any of the _other_ Witchers Jaskier knows have human lovers. And of course Geralt and Eskel knew…

Jaskier puts a hand over his eyes. “My dear, Witcher-loving human friends,” he says to the hall, “did we _all_ end up telling our lovers?”

“Think we did,” Zofia says. “Huh. Guess that bet’s off the table. I’ll get your stakes back to you after supper, if you like.”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Letho says, and Jan comes over to usher the baffled prostitutes out of the hall and - Jaskier assumes - find them lodging for the night, and Jaskier sits back down and listens to the sound of three hundred Witchers discovering they can keep their lovers young forever.

Not _quite_ the way he’d thought this secret would come out, but he can’t really object to it doing so. Not when the Witchers, one and all, look so godsdamned _relieved_.

Geralt wraps an arm around his waist and nuzzles against his hair, rumbling a soft sound of pleasure, and Ciri slides out of her chair and wriggles past Geralt’s legs and hugs Jaskier as tight as she can. “We get to _keep_ you,” she says happily, sniffling a little. “Forever and ever.”

“Forever and ever, cub,” Jaskier agrees, kissing the top of her head. “You’re stuck with me.”

“Nope, you’re stuck with _us_ ,” Ciri says, and climbs into Geralt’s lap even though she’s rather too large to fit these days. Eskel stands and leans on the arm of the double chair, running his fingers through Jaskier’s hair and smiling down at all of them, and Jaskier watches the happy chaos engulfing the hall and thinks contentedly that there is nowhere else he would rather spend the next few centuries.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for your comments, kudos, and support! Please feel free to come and say hi on tumblr or discord!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Faithful Beauty of the Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26983342) by [AceOfTigers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfTigers/pseuds/AceOfTigers)




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